Praying With Paul

[nChrist]

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Praying With Paul
by Eldon Degge
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Patiently, yet Expectantly

Passage

Colossians 3:3-4

Prayer

Dear Father, My God, I know that I have died and that my life is hid with Christ. He holds the outcome of my life wholly in his hands; he is my life. Grant that I may wait patiently yet expectantly, knowing that when he appears, I will also appear with him in glory. Father, I thank you for this blessed hope. Let the joy of it fill my life every day as I sojourn here on this earth. Let me put the things of this world in perspective through the victory that Christ brings.In the name of Jesus I ask. Amen.

[nChrist]

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Praying With Paul
by Eldon Degge
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Dead and Risen

Passage

Colossians 2:20-3:2

Prayer

Dear Father, Help me to realize that I have died and have been resurrected with Christ. Break the attachments of my old life and its bondage. Don't let me live as if life were a matter of keeping regulations - don't touch, don't taste, don't handle - but let me live out of a deep sense of love and loyalty to my Savior. Don't let me grasp for that which has merely an appearance of wisdom and which might make a show of religiosity but not really do anything to separate me from the pride and lusts of my fleshly nature. Rather let me seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at your right hand. Let me set my mind on the things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. In the name of Jesus I ask. Amen.

[nChrist]

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Praying With Paul
by Eldon Degge
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Good News for Every Nation

Passage

Romans 1:1-4

Prayer

Dear Father, who commissioned the Good News to all nations, Thank you that through Christ we have received grace and been commissioned to spread the Good News everywhere to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including our own. Thank you that we here in our country are also called to belong to Jesus Christ. May the grace and peace that comes from you, our Father, and from Jesus be showered upon all of us who claim your promises. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have received grace, I pray. Amen.

[nChrist]

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Praying With Paul
by Eldon Degge
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Good News for Planet Earth

Passage

Romans 1:1-4

Prayer

Dear Father, who commissioned the Good News to earth,Thank you for the Good News for planet Earth which you promised through your prophets in the Holy Scriptures. We love you for giving us this Good News about your Son, who, though he was descended from King David according to the flesh, was designated your Son, the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead. We exult in thanksgiving for Jesus Christ, holder of all authority, in whose name we come. Amen.

[nChrist]

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Praying With Paul
by Eldon Degge
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Partners in Christ

Passage

Philemon 17-25

Prayer

Father of mercy, Holy God and Father, have mercy and show kindness to those who are in bondage - those who are in prison, those who are enslaved to other people, and those who are enslaved to self and to sin. Teach us to show genuine hospitality to each other, never keeping score or grumbling, understanding that you, Father, are freely entertaining us in your house, the earth, and feeding us at your table with its bounty. Fill our hearts with love for our brethren and our lips with prayer in their behalf. May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with our spirits. In his name I ask. Amen.

[nChrist]

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Praying With Paul
by Eldon Degge
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Filling the Earth with God's Goodness

Passage

Philemon 1-16

Prayer

Dear Father, bestower of freedom, Thank you for the love and the faith which you have put in your people. Please help them share this with each other and with the world. Let this promote the knowledge of all the good that is ours in Christ Jesus. Put such joy in our hearts and such gladness on our faces that people will want to know what makes us happy. Help each of us to render such help and comfort, expressing our love, that the hearts of all your holy people will be refreshed. Help us not to make demands on each other, but to entreat, seeking consent, so that the good we ask from others might not be given through compulsion but through free will. Help us to bind up broken relationships. Help us to be willing to step into the breach, to enable others to make amends, even if it costs us money, effort, or time. May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with our spirits. In his name I ask. Amen.

[nChrist]

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Praying With Paul
by Eldon Degge
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Working Together

Passage

Colossians 4:12-18

Prayer

Dear Father, Help us to remember each other earnestly in our prayers. Help us to stand mature and to be fully assured in your will. Help us encourage one another to carry our assigned works to completion. Help us fulfil whatever ministry we have received in the Lord. Help us to remember those who are in prison, and those who suffer in any way for your service. May your perfect grace sustain and keep all of us. In the name of Jesus I ask. Amen.

[nChrist]

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Praying With Paul
by Eldon Degge
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Encouragement and Comfort

Passage

Colossians 4:7-11

Prayer

Dear Father, Give us caring hearts when it comes to our fellow servants in Christ. May we carry the news of them to each other for the sake of building each other up. Stir us up to work hard for the kingdom of God and to encourage each other in all facets of our labor. Show us ways that we can encourage each other in our struggles and comfort each other in our sufferings. In the name of Jesus I ask. Amen.

[nChrist]

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Praying With Paul
by Eldon Degge
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Fullness of Love

Passage

Colossians 4:2-6

Prayer

Dear Father, grantor of wisdom, Help me conduct myself wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. Let my speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, and may I always know how to answer. Help me and all your saints to show ourselves to be a people who live life to the fullest, because we live in the fullness of your love shown in Jesus Christ! In the name of Jesus I ask you to fill our lives with your holy life and to claim all our motives and deeds as your own. Amen.

[nChrist]

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Praying With Paul
by Eldon Degge
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No Partiality

Passage

Romans 2:8-11

Prayer

Dear Father, holy and righteous judge, I know that you will render to every man according to his works. To those who are factious and obey wickedness instead of the truth, there will be wrath and fury. You have foretold tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, to the Jew first and also the non-Jew, but glory and honor and peace for every one who does good, to the Jew first and also to the non-Jew. For you show no partiality. Help me do what is good, but not out of my own resources, for my goodness is unacceptable to you. Help me do what is good by living in and for Christ, whose goodness you will accept. By your grace alone am I saved, as I entrust my soul to you. Thank you that you will impute Christ's righteousness to me on this basis. In the name of Jesus I ask for your acceptance through my faith. Amen.

[nChrist]

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Praying With Paul
by Eldon Degge
Free By RSS News
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No Presumption

Passage

Romans 2:1-7

Prayer

Dear Father, holy and righteous judge, Help me not to condemn myself by passing judgment on someone else when I may be doing the same or similar things. How could I escape your judgment and do this? Help me not to presume on the riches of your kindness and forbearance and patience. Help me understand that your kindness is meant to lead me to repentance. Take away the hardness and impenitence that may be in my heart. Give me a heart of flesh, not stone. Change my behavior and my attitudes so that none of your wrath will be stored against me to be unleashed on the day of the revelation of your righteous judgment. In the name of Jesus I ask for your acceptance through my faith. Amen.

[nChrist]

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Praying With Paul
by Eldon Degge
Free By RSS News
_________________

God's Righteous Judgment

Passage

Romans 1:32

Prayer

Dear Father, righteous judge, Who could argue against your righteous judgment? Who would claim that those who refuse to see truth should not be left in their blindness? Though they know that those who pervert truth deserve to die, they not only continue to practice perversion, they also glorify it! Holy God, your judgment is just! Have mercy on these derelict people to chasten them with judgments that will bring them to repentance. And dear Father, save all of your people, your holy remnant, from the flood of filth and enmity toward you that surrounds us every day! Thank you, God, that your judgment is just, but thank you also that your mercy is available to all. Thank you for your remedy for sin and death! Only you, God, could do this! It is in the name of Jesus and by his authority that we have such boldness to come to you, asking these things according to his will. Amen.

[nChrist]

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Praying With Paul
by Eldon Degge
Free By RSS News
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Men's Improper Conduct

Passage

Romans 1:26-31

Prayer

Dear Father, judge of all, How awful is your judgment. When men do not acknowledge you as God and do not live by your teachings, you give them up to base minds and improper conduct. Then they become filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malignity, they gossip, slander, and hate you. They are insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. These are the themes of our television programs, of our books and magazines today. And the authors of it are proud! They justify this accursed stuff by calling it realistic! In the name of Jesus and by his authority I pray that people everywhere will acknowledge that truth and goodness come only from you. Amen.

[nChrist]

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Praying With Paul
by Eldon Degge
Free By RSS News
_________________

Men's Dishonor

Passage

Romans 1:24-25

Prayer

Dear Father, to whom all honor and glory is due, How sad that some would choose to dishonor themselves rather than to honor you. When they do so, you give them up to their own dishonorable passions. Women exchange natural relationships for unnatural. The men likewise give up natural relations with women and are consumed with lust for each other. Men commit shameless acts with other men and receive in their own persons the due penalty of their error. Today, Lord, it seems to be getting worse. Men and women exalt their own selves to godhood while practicing blatant homosexuality. Instead of repenting, they demand the right to impugn you, and they will not admit that they are responsible for the diseases you have put upon them. May I always acknowledge that you are the creator of life and love and that only when I act in accordance with your design will I find satisfaction. In Christ's name. Amen.

[nChrist]

_________________
Praying With Paul
by Eldon Degge
Free By RSS News
_________________

God's Honor

Passage

Romans 1:18-23

Prayer

Dear Father, to whom all honor and glory is due, How sorry I am that men do not honor you as their God and King! It is to their loss and to their hurt, but it insults you! They wickedly suppress the truth. Through creation, you have shown them plainly what can be known about you, so they are without excuse. Although they know of you, the true God, they do not honor you as God or give thanks to you as God. Their thinking is futile and their senseless minds are darkened. Claiming to be wise, they become fools and exchange your glory, the glory of the immortal God, for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. How awful is your judgment! Because they exchange the truth about you for a lie and worship and serve the creature rather than you, the Creator, the holy God, who is blessed for ever, you give them up to the lusts of their impure hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves. May I never be so foolish as to trade your glory for my own. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, creator and sustainer of the universe. Amen.